PDA

View Full Version : Road Conditions Improve, Highways In Best Shape In Two Decades




Matt Collins
09-09-2010, 07:21 PM
Annual Report: Road Conditions Improve, Highways In Best Shape In Two Decades (http://click.email.reason.org/?qs=9a92dee6dc67a28b09e5887b8d3fa4a1aa8261e8cd6c07 6cd936d26015185e7e)


State road and highway conditions are the best they’ve been in 19 years, according to Reason Foundation’s 19th Annual Highway Report. Unfortunately, the recession is partly responsible for the improvement in road conditions: people are driving less which has helped slow pavement deterioration and reduced traffic congestion and fatalities. The annual Reason Foundation study measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-owned roads in 11 categories, including deficient bridges, urban traffic congestion, fatality rates, pavement condition, and the number of unsafe narrow rural lanes. National performance in all of those key areas improved in 2008, the most recent year with complete data available.


The report's findings include:


-Drivers in California, Minnesota, Maryland, Michigan and Connecticut are stuck in the worst traffic. But nationally, urban Interstate congestion is at its lowest level since 2000.


-Motorists in California and Hawaii have to look out for the most potholes on urban Interstates. Alaska and Rhode Island have the bumpiest rural pavement. Across the country, pavement conditions are the best since 1993.


-Rhode Island has the most troubled bridges in the US, with over 53 percent of its bridges deficient. Over 141,000 (23.7 percent) of America’s bridges were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete in 2008, the lowest percentage since 1984.


-Massachusetts has the safest roads with just 0.67 fatalities per 100 million miles driven. Montana and Louisiana have the highest fatality rates, at 2.12 and 2.02 fatalities per 100 million miles driven. Today the U.S. Department of Transportation announced fatalities in 2009 fell even further, to the lowest level since 1950.


-Overall, North Dakota, Montana and Kansas have the most cost-effective state highway systems. Rhode Island, Alaska, California, Hawaii and New York have the least cost-effective roads.




Reason Foundation's complete Annual Highway Report, with detailed state-by-state analysis, is online here (http://click.email.reason.org/?qs=9a92dee6dc67a28b09e5887b8d3fa4a1aa8261e8cd6c07 6cd936d26015185e7e).


USA Today: New Report Shows State Highways in Good Shape (http://click.email.reason.org/?qs=9a92dee6dc67a28ba9d9de06444867afdbf0ca6b5e7d16 2fc48d3238410d5760)

Reuters: Bumpy Economy Cited as Helping Improve U.S. Roads (http://click.email.reason.org/?qs=9a92dee6dc67a28b40329905e12ff25a54357f4d7af9f4 288c7587f0841bf71b)

Bloomberg: U.S. Highway Funds Have Greatest Effect on Rural States, Reason Study Says (http://click.email.reason.org/?qs=9a92dee6dc67a28b5796a633464d1b86e58e5f1f6fc3ae e61adb0be9f995240b)

Rael
09-10-2010, 01:31 AM
Well as many fucking tickets as they give out on them, they ought to be in good shape.

Austrian Econ Disciple
09-10-2010, 01:43 AM
Ha State highways in good shape eh? Have they never driven along I-94? The roads are atrocious and the construction has everything mucked up. Winter is coming fast, and the rest of the roads in this area are atrocious. I wonder what criteria they mean to use for "good". They spend tens and tens and hundreds of billions of dollars yearly on roads and they still suck. Government can't run a brothel, why do you expect them to run and maintain such a large and complex system as road infrastructure/engineering/etc. This is a joke to anyone up here in Wisconsin/Illinois Milwaukee/Chicago area. (Here is how bad it is...the road by my house which is right off the highway literally is half gravel / half paved...there are huge sections of the road where it is filled in with soil/gravel and they constantly have to go back over it after rain because there are dips and holes the size of small sinkholes..) The main road into Bayview which borders Milwaukee, and is right next to the road coming into Milwaukee, is gravel in parts with HUGE dips and holes and you have to drive like 2 MPH because from the paved road to the gravel drops about 6 inches. YEAH ROADS ARE GOOD.

Just look around at the extreme de-capitalization of America. It is depressing. STOP SPENDING, STOP TAXING, STOP REGULATING YOU PARASITES... Goddamn I'm so mad.

DamianTV
09-10-2010, 05:25 AM
Its mostly because of how government budgets work. Oh shit, there is a depression? Quick! Spend as much money as we possibly can so we can get as much for our budget next year, so they react and think they have to spend MORE instead of less. One of those outlets is the Roads...

nate895
09-10-2010, 05:45 AM
I-80 through Western Wyoming is in horrible condition. Driving on that thing, which I did about about two months ago, was like driving over a patched up mess. What is funny is that is was the only place that we did not run into major road construction that brought I-80, one of the big east-west thoroughfares, down to two lanes was in Western Wyoming. The stimulus package seems to spend a whole ton of money repaving roads that were already in decent shape and does nothing to roads that actually need to be fixed. That is just another way the stimulus is hurting the economy.

Working Poor
09-10-2010, 07:21 AM
I am real glad that our boys locked up in prisom has something to do and can earn a very few bucks.

Seraphim
09-10-2010, 07:26 AM
I-80 through Western Wyoming is in horrible condition. Driving on that thing, which I did about about two months ago, was like driving over a patched up mess. What is funny is that is was the only place that we did not run into major road construction that brought I-80, one of the big east-west thoroughfares, down to two lanes was in Western Wyoming. The stimulus package seems to spend a whole ton of money repaving roads that were already in decent shape and does nothing to roads that actually need to be fixed. That is just another way the stimulus is hurting the economy.

Wow I hear you man. In the city I live (I am in Canada but a lot of the same non-sense stimulus shit exists) there were roads that were repaved that were near perfect! And guess what? NOT 400 METERS AWAY A ROAD THAT ACTUALLY NEEDED IT.

I started complaining about it while in the car with my mom and she was like, oh you complain too much, but it created jobs...and I said THIS IS YOUR MONEY BEING WASTED! LOOK, LOOK AT THAT ROAD, ITS BAD, WHY IS IT BEING IGNORED WHERE THIS WELL CONDITIONED ONE GETS REPAVED? THIS IS PRODCUTIVE???


"Please line up for you hole digging and hole filling job"

Austrian Econ Disciple
09-10-2010, 07:46 AM
Wow I hear you man. In the city I live (I am in Canada but a lot of the same non-sense stimulus shit exists) there were roads that were repaved that were near perfect! And guess what? NOT 400 METERS AWAY A ROAD THAT ACTUALLY NEEDED IT.

I started complaining about it while in the car with my mom and she was like, oh you complain too much, but it created jobs...and I said THIS IS YOUR MONEY BEING WASTED! LOOK, LOOK AT THAT ROAD, ITS BAD, WHY IS IT BEING IGNORED WHERE THIS WELL CONDITIONED ONE GETS REPAVED? THIS IS PRODCUTIVE???


"Please line up for you hole digging and hole filling job"

This reminds me of a funny Murray quip. Talking about how given Capitalism is not interferred with we would reach a point of scarcity which today would be unbelievable (e.g. working 5 hours a week produces the equivalent of 60 hours today), that there would be an outcry from Government about how people are unemployed and everything is bad, and the solution is Socialism. He then goes on to state how Professors at Polytech in the early late 60s early 70s go on to state everything is in shortage -- hence need for rationed Socialism (These same professors not 5-10 years earlier were calling it a post-scarcity age, and arguing for Socialism). Some of these people are so stupid it's hard to comprehend. In their minds Socialism is the answer to anything and everything, not even realizing that the conditions today were not brought about by Government/Collective edict, but by individual pursuit and action. They take the latter for granted, and don't even acknowledge it exists. It's fucking retarded.

We all get poorer by dumbass corrupt shit like this. Why would you think an institution which gets money regardless would be efficient?

Fredom101
09-10-2010, 09:28 AM
Haha what a joke, where I'm from in southern cal the roads are always a mess, and where I'm living now in Texas it's just about as bad.

The only solution is to privatize ALL roads.